Feds to port: Use $600K earmark or lose it

Friday

Aug 31, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Port of Stockton and Caltrans officials are looking at ways to apply nearly $600,000 in unspent federal funds originally earmarked for the port's Daggett Road improvement project after receiving a "use it or lose it" message from the Obama administration.

Reed Fujii

Port of Stockton and Caltrans officials are looking at ways to apply nearly $600,000 in unspent federal funds originally earmarked for the port's Daggett Road improvement project after receiving a "use it or lose it" message from the Obama administration.

U.S. Department of Transportation officials earlier this month said they would make available immediately $470 million in funds unspent from 2003-06 fiscal appropriations under the previous administration. State and local officials have until Dec. 31 to get shovel-ready projects in line for the money, or it will be redistributed to agencies that meet the deadline.

Port Director Richard Aschieris said Thursday that some funds earmarked for Daggett Road - converting a dirt and gravel farm road to a truck-traffic route between Rough and Ready Island and Highway 4 - went unspent as the project came in well under budget.

The road, renamed the Port of Stockton Expressway and including a bridge over Burns Cutoff, opened in 2007. A further elevated section, carrying the expressway over a railroad line, was finished in June.

"Given the overall economic conditions, the bids that came in were very aggressive," he said.

"If we end up with a (completed) project and we're spending less public money, that's not a bad thing, in my mind," Aschieris added.

The unspent funds, including more than $43 million originally tied to 71 projects in California, will be put to good use, Caltrans spokesman Matt Rocco said Thursday.

"This is such a great opportunity for the state, because before (the federal announcement) that $600,000 was tied up, it's earmarked. We didn't have the flexibility to move it to another project. And now we do," he said.

State officials are reviewing the original earmark projects as well as identifying eligible alternatives that have approved design plans and clear right-of-way titles.

"We're trying to identify how we can allocate these funds by the federal deadline of Dec. 31 of this year," Rocco said.

While work on the expressway is complete, Aschieris said the port is asking Caltrans to consider using the earmarks on a project to upgrade the traffic signals at the intersection of Highway 4 and Fresno Avenue.

It is somewhat related, because the expressway redirects truck traffic from the port onto Highway 4 and away from smaller surface streets.